I'm typesetting Pachelbel's Magnificat fugues to learn the basics and I hoped I could some feedback:

I'm trying to make sight reading easy, so omitting some rests, plenty of accidentals and the upper/lower staves mostly represent the actual notes played by the right/left hand. (I used Lilypond but based on the other threads here you could probably recognize the feta font from a mile away)

1. The spacing is a little tight, even for someone like me who likes tight spacing. You might put it on 5 systems.
2. For me, the omission of some of the rests and changes of stem direction actually make it more difficult to discern the voice leading, which in turn makes it harder to read.
3. Ditch the infamous Lilypond G-clef. It is grotesque.

1. The spacing is a little tight, even for someone like me who likes tight spacing. You might put it on 5 systems.
2. For me, the omission of some of the rests and changes of stem direction actually make it more difficult to discern the voice leading, which in turn makes it harder to read.
3. Ditch the infamous Lilypond G-clef. It is grotesque.

Thank you for the suggestions, I'll be sure to give 1 & 2 a try later today. And I agree about the clef :P, I also don't like the natural symbol so I'll probably swap that one too.

The 5 systems are clearer, I'll keep that. I personally just read the notes when I sight read, the full bar rests still seem like noise to me. I'll ask some pianists for some anecdotal evidence. Sorry about not changing the clef yet :P.

The spacing is much better, and your use of the more traditional way of handling the stems and rests in polyphonic music looks much better to me. A good way to decide something like this issue is is to browse through a lot of different editions of similar music (Bach's Art of Fugue comes to mind) to see the range of what is done and which you prefer. Asking a few performers is probably not as satisfactory unless they are also engravers.

Their is another issue: the staves seem quite long for their height. Generally publishers use a 7.25-7.75 inch length with a .7 centimeter staff for keyboard music. At about 8 inches it becomes harder to visually orient oneself on the line, which is why books are not often printed with such long lines of text as one sees on this forum. But I am not sure whether it is the length or the height of the staves that gives this impression.

John Ruggero wrote:The spacing is much better, and your use of the more traditional way of handling the stems and rests in polyphonic music looks much better to me. A good way to decide something like this issue is is to browse through a lot of different editions of similar music (Bach's Art of Fugue comes to mind) to see the range of what is done and which you prefer. Asking a few performers is probably not as satisfactory unless they are also engravers.

That's probably true, although it might still be valuable. There seems to be quite some research on sight reading too. Although I don't think anybody researched full bar rests haha.

Their is another issue: the staves seem quite long for their height. Generally publishers use a 7.25-7.75 inch length with a .7 centimeter staff for keyboard music. At about 8 inches it becomes harder to visually orient oneself on the line, which is why books are not often printed with such long lines of text as one sees on this forum. But I am not sure whether it is the length or the height of the staves that gives this impression.

This is not a full page obviously, the paper size is A4 and 7.5inch for the system is about right. The staff height is ~6.2cm. So indeed a bit small! Full disclosure: I already did the note entry for all 95 of the fugues (but no real typesetting to speak of) and I'm experimenting with the staff size to see what creates the best fit, the current size allows nearly all fugues to fit on a single page quite well. Is that a reasonable trade-off?

You are preaching to the choir in your desire to avoid page turns! However, I think that you will find the increased staff height pleasing and hopefully will not affect the spacing or layout very much, assuming that the texture is generally like your illustration.

My comment about the rests was independent of pedagogical factors, so please factor that in. If these pieces are being presented as sight-reading etudes, then you might add the rests in progressively so the student learns to deal with them gradually.